


The Scrimshaw Priest

by icarus_chained



Category: Original Work
Genre: Crew as Family, Dungeons & Dragons Inspired, Elves, Fantasy, First Meetings, Gen, Gods, Half-Orcs - Freeform, Language, Maritime Superstitions, Original Fiction, Pirates, Prosthesis, Revenge, Sailors, Sea God, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 07:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14930120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: The crew of the Whitestone Trader are in Thindisfal, a tiny smugglers shithole, looking for a new purser after their old one has died. Then an elf walks in with a wooden leg and a scrimshaw medallion to the god of storms on his belt. Thismightbe more than they've bargained for.





	The Scrimshaw Priest

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything in months, and then when I do it's an odd D&D inspired story about tempest clerics and bemused ship's crews. I have no idea.

"I don't know about you, boss, but I think we're going to have to give this one up as a bad job."

It was Fennec, her first mate, saying it, and after eight fucking hours of this shit Gnel had to agree with him. She leaned back heavily in her seat, pawing one hand down her face in a long sweep of exasperation. For fuck's sake, how fucking hard could it be to hire one fucking man, hmm? Even a shithole like Thindisfal had to have _somebody_ capable of adding up some numbers and keeping cargo in trim. Sure, it was the arse end of nowhere, a flea pit smugglers port on the Denleen coast, but they still had fucking _arithmetic_ here, didn't they? How fucking hard could it be?

Of course, arithmetic wasn't really the problem they'd been seeing so far. Arithmetic in favour of her ship and crew, instead of the prospective purser, was the problem. She wouldn't trust any fucker in this place to hold two coppers for her, let alone the ship's treasury. 

Served her fucking right for asking in a smugglers den in the first place, she supposed.

She sat forward again with a sigh, leaning over the table and gesturing for Drebson to go grab another round from the bar. If she couldn't hire anyone sober, maybe she'd have better luck drunk. All else failed, even if she made a mistake, she could throw the fucker overboard for shark bait and get food on the way to a better fucking port.

"I say we leave it," Maarle cut in from her other side, slouching back and looking about as dour as she did. "Just leave the whole fucking thing, up anchor and head for Tenaleer instead. We can manage that long, and at least the islands have a better class of scum."

Which, fair point, Gnel had to admit. It wasn't like they had a lot of cargo on anyway right now. Tenaleer was friendly enough not to stiff them too badly for what they had, and taking one of the friendlier skinflints aboard to scam people on their behalf mightn't be a bad idea either in the long run. Triki, gods rest his soul, had even gotten on fairly well with them himself. He'd probably approve.

Of course, if Triki had been sensible enough not to fucking die on them, they wouldn't be having this problem in the first place. So.

Drebson, at that point, came back with an armful of tankards, and everyone paused in their grumbling, audible and otherwise, to toss back a good mouthful of the bar's premier shark piss. Which was nice enough, actually. Went down like a cannonball, set Gnel's tusks tingling. Strong piss, right enough. Guess smugglers were good for something.

"We'll give it another half hour," she decided, setting the tankard back and swiping an arm across her mouth. "Word of our opinions has to have done the rounds by now. We've run through most of the assholes looking for easy prey. If there's anyone in this shithole with the sense or desperation to do right by us, now's the time they'll show up."

Maarle grunted. " _If_ ," she muttered. "Big if, that. Guess I can sit for half an hour, though."

Fennec snorted agreeably. "Sure," he said. "Long as the shark piss keeps coming."

Even Gnel cracked a grin at that one, and all four tankards were raised in rapid and emphatic toast. Eight hours was a long fucking time to be stuck sitting in any shithole, but for shark piss of this calibre, they could wait half an hour more.

Though they mightn't need to. Motion by the door of the tavern caught Gnel's eye, and a quick glance caught the rest of her attention. She straightened slowly in her seat, the tankard in her hand drifting back down to the tabletop. The figure in the doorway felt her stare, turned his head to meet her eyes. Even across the width of the taproom, something in his gaze had the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

"Heads up," she murmured softly, as the object of her interest turned and moved towards them. Her crew stilled around her, turning to follow her eyes. A weighted silence fell over their part of taproom, and their quarry strode calmly into it. If anything about their attention disturbed him, he gave no sign.

Not that he looked the sort of give much sign of anything, Gnel thought idly. She gave him a long, slow once-over as he came to a halt beside them.

Elf. Full blooded elf, at that, with bronze skin and silvery-white hair. Salustrian, by the colouring. The colouring was all that showed it, though. The hair was shorn short, with none of the long locks the southern elves favoured, and in general he was slumming it a lot more thoroughly than most high elves allowed. No shoes, no fancy clothes, no shiny jewellery. 

And no right leg, either. At least, not his original one. The bleached driftwood stood out quite strongly, between his skin tone and his lack of shoes. It was a well-carved thing. Would have looked just like a proper foot, if only it'd been the right colour and made the right sound against the floorboards. But it wasn't and it didn't, and Gnel was pretty sure every last one of her crew had snuck a quick look or twelve down at it as he approached.

It wasn't what had her hair standing on end, though. The pair of swords wasn't either. It was the look in his eyes, she thought. That, and the scrimshaw medallion on a loop of leather at his belt.

A sea wall broken by a storm wave. The sign of the Storm Lord. Iskuur.

He noticed her looking at it. He paid more attention to that than to the glances towards his leg. That said a thing or two about his priorities. Then again, wearing that medallion openly said some things about that. Even if they were in a smugglers haunt.

"... Captain Leharr of the Whitestone Trader?" he asked lightly in Common. His accent was Salustrian too, though a bit degraded around the edges. Lustan coast, she thought. Maybe an exile. He hadn't been home in a while.

"That's me," she answered, just as lightly. No point denying it. There couldn't be that many half orc captains looking for crew around here, after all. "Why? You need something?"

He smiled thinly. "Perhaps," he said. "I heard you were looking for crew. A purser. That still true?"

And she'd been ready for it, of course, there wasn't a single other reason to come anywhere near her right now, but a part of her still couldn't believe his bald faced nerve. He had to know what he looked like. A wooden leg and that medallion at his waist. He was bad fucking luck incarnate standing in front of them and he had to fucking know it. There wasn't a ship on the whole fucking Ehrish Sea who'd take him on.

Yet he asked it calmly, straight-faced as you please. In spite of herself, Gnel felt something stir at that. Amusement, or appreciation, she wasn't sure. But something.

"We're looking," she agreed, making a point to ignore the stifled stir of shock and horror around her, and Maarle's hard elbow to her side as well. His eyes flickered, catching it, but he matched her bland for bland as she continued. "We've been running into some problems. Slim pickings. Scoundrels. People looking to swindle us. That sort of thing. Why? You know somebody who might want to sign aboard?"

As though they both didn't know who wanted it. As though they both couldn't see all the reasons why he shouldn't get it. But she wanted to see how he'd answer. She wanted to see how far that nerve of his stretched.

That thin smile made another appearance. Just a flicker, his eyes tight and cold. "If someone else wanted it," he said quietly, "they wouldn't send me to ask for them. Would they."

Not a flinch, not a twitch. Cold, steady challenge, all the way down the line. That hum of appreciation inside her grew. There weren't many who'd answer her quite so baldly. Swindle her, sure, she looked brutish and stupid enough for some to try their luck, but she had teeth and scars and seven feet of well-proven bulk and dexterity to show her enemies. Flat challenges, however obliquely phrased, tended to be more of a rarity for her.

And she did so enjoy them when she happened across them, didn't she?

She grinned at him, showing all her teeth, and shoved a chair out from the table with her foot. "Sit down, then," she said. "Have a drink with us. Show us what you've got."

"For fuck's sake, boss," Fennec whispered. More in disbelief than proper disapproval, she thought. At least so far. They'd said a half an hour, though. And this one wasn't looking to swindle them. They'd all allow him that much, at least.

Wordlessly, Drebson got up to fetch more rum. A lot more. She flicked a glance at him, lazy and pointed, and he nodded tightly. There'd be five tankards coming back. They had offered the man a drink.

"So," she said, looking back at the elf. Studying him that little more while he propped his swords against the chair and sat down with every appearance of calm. His hands were raw and worn, the handles of his swords as much so. There were scars across his forearms. His eyes were stormcloud grey. She wondered if they'd always been that colour. "You have a name, to start? Don't take crew we don't know the names of."

He glanced at her. "Naheel," he said mildly. "Naheel Dethuur. Originally of Cerastes." He paused a little. Eyed her. "You're not surprised, I think."

She smiled at him. "Nah," she agreed. "I'd guessed Lustan coast. You still have the accent. More or less."

He seemed to pause to consider that, as though he wasn't quite sure how he felt about it. She eyed him curiously. She wasn't the only one. A Salustrian elf was _not_ a common sight around here. Or around anywhere that wasn't Salustria, come to that. They didn't like to mingle with lesser beings that much. 

They didn't tend to worship Iskuur either. Well, nobody did, at least not openly, but a Salustrian least of all. The Lord of Storms didn't tend to mix well with civilisation, and Salustrians did so pride themselves on that.

She _was_ curious, Gnel had to admit. If nothing else came of this, it'd be worth the half hour to try and sate that curiosity at least a little.

"... I was a harbourmaster," he said finally, once he was done figuring out how he felt about his own nationality. The words were a jolt for more than just her. She saw Maarle and Fennec straighten around her as well. He smiled again, and given the strength of that charge she was inclined to allow it. "A well placed one, set to rise high. I had a talent for customs. A good grasp of what should be going where and when, and how much could be made on it. Talents that might serve you well in a purser, no?"

"Fuck me sideways," Maarle managed. There was a brief pause, while Drebson arrived back with the newest in their collection of tankards, and more or less all of them finished off their precursors in one long gulp. Naheel, watching them, only took the smallest of sips himself. He didn't flinch at it, either.

"Right," Gnel murmured, new tankard in hand and wiping her mouth again. "Harbourmaster. In _Cerastes_. Sure. So, and don't take this the wrong way or anything, but what the _fuck_ are you doing here then?"

Because it wasn't plausible. It really fucking wasn't. A Salustrian wasn't that plausible from a standing start, let alone a big city Salustrian from a high placed position. They were in fucking _Thindisfal_ , for fuck's sake. The tiniest little shithole of a smugglers fucking port on the entire Denleen coast. Not to mention, again, a _smugglers_ shithole. A Cerastian fucking harbourmaster had no business within four hundred fucking miles of the place.

Not even a Cerastian harbourmaster with shorn hair, and a missing leg, and a medallion to Iskuur on a loop at his waist.

He looked at her again. Dead steady, that thing in his eyes that had unnerved her from the start. He fingered his medallion with one hand, thin, dexterous fingers worrying over the carved ivory face. Tracing the wave, the break in the wall. The action drew her eyes inexorably, and when she looked back up his smile had turned very bleak.

"Misadventures," he said, soft and hollow and wry. "What else?"

Gnel looked away. Misadventures. Yeah. They'd known he was bad luck, hadn't they. Nobody wearing that sign was ever going to be anything else.

"What _kind_ of misadventures?" came a voice beside her. Maarle, tight and hard and incautious, leaning forward to demand his attention. He gave it easily enough. He turned from Gnel to hold Maarle's eyes calmly.

"The unfortunate kind," he said, though not seriously. Not with any real expectation. "Do you really need to know?"

"You know we fucking do," the bosun snapped back. Coldly, more than angrily. _Truthfully_. "You want to bring that thing in your hand aboard our ship, you know you have to answer for it. You know you've got to tell us what the fuck you'll be bringing down on us in your wake."

And he did. He did know. He'd worn his faith and his promises openly from the start. He'd walked up here wearing the fucking thing for all to see. He wasn't stupid. Of course he'd known he'd answer for it.

He paused for a long time anyway. Watching them, looking carefully from face to face. Looking for something. Not sympathy, she thought. Not pity or softness or care. Something else. That look was back in his eyes. Stormcloud grey. Nothing soft in them at all. Hard and watchful and gleaming, and looking for something to match it.

"... I had heard," he said at last. Slowly. Carefully. "I have heard ... rumours. Of the Whitestone Trader. Her captain. Her crew. They say you hunt ... certain people. Certain ships. You're not pirates. Privateers, maybe, though for what nation no one is sure. But you hunt ships. You trade in goods and cargo, passage, but you hunt as well. I've heard it said that you often hunt a particular kind of quarry."

He said it softly. So carefully. Neither challenge nor accusation. Gnel felt ice slip down her spine anyway.

They _weren't_ pirates. Her ship, her crew. They might rub shoulders with them easily enough, but they weren't pirates themselves. Nor privateers. There was no nation under the sun that Gnel would trust to give her orders, or demand service of her crew. She'd seen enough shit growing up to know that for sure. Independent traders, that was them. One and all. They valued their freedom too much for anything else. 

Which was why the only ships they'd ever actively hunted were slavers.

Naheel wore no jewellery. No _chains_. He'd lost a leg somewhere, replaced it with driftwood carved like a foot. He worshipped a god of seas and storms and chaos, a sinker of ships. A god whose emblem was a shattered sea wall, a symbol of landbound authority sundered by his might.

A god of sunken ships and broken chains, and freedom defended by might.

"I can help you move your cargo," he said quietly. Seriously. "I can help you move it quickly and quietly, in the best places and for the best prices. If you were pirates, I could tell you what tends to go where and when, along the southern and eastern coasts in particular. I can fight if I need to fight. I have gifts of my god that can help me there. And I have ..." He slowed, and smiled oddly. "I have it on the very best of authority that my god does not disapprove of you. You have given him a number of gifts in your time. He appreciates that very much. I do not think my presence would be much trouble for you."

Gnel stared at him. Her whole fucking crew stared at him. More than her hair was standing on end now. She'd paid lip service to the gods of the sea over the years. Pretty much all of them. Of course she had. She'd gotten what might even have been answers once or twice, strokes of luck with suspicious timing here or there. But she'd never had anything from any god on _good authority_. She didn't know if she _wanted_ to, either.

But it seemed Iskuur already had his eyes upon them. And if you had to have the eyes of any god, she supposed it was better to have their favour than not.

"And if we find ourselves hunting more slavers?" she heard herself asking. Distantly, from a sort of absent curiosity. " _Should_ we find ourselves hunting more slavers? If we take you on. Is that what Iskuur asks of his priest?"

Because he was a priest. A cleric. Not just a worshipper. He had gifts of his god, and good authority on certain matters. That was more than idle interest on Iskuur's part.

He smiled thinly for the question. She wondered if his face was ever relaxed, ever less than taut. It was real humour in those stormgrey eyes, though, and something soft enough to maybe be apology.

"He asks nothing," he said quietly. "Nothing at all. I would happily slaughter every slaver on the Ehrish Sea, but that is my choice, not his mandate. He is ... He values freedom. His gifts are given by his choice, and any offerings I make are given by mine. You needn't worry. You already have his favour, and I am not so blind that I would ask you to risk your lives for my vengeance. I wish to join your crew. No more, no less. If I never saw a single slaver while aboard your ship, I would do my best for you regardless. My god would not protest."

And Gnel wasn't so sure of that. She wasn't sure she believed it, and by the looks on their faces it didn't look like her crew believed it either. They'd never been much for the ways of gods, though. None of them had ever been priests or earnest worshippers, none of them had ever taken time to learn the vagaries of gods. Naheel wore his medallion openly, and spoke with authority in his god's name. Iskuur was not a shy god. If Naheel had tried lying, she suspected they'd quickly have known about it. Given that no one had been struck by lightning or the tavern smashed open by a wave yet, he was probably telling the truth.

Besides. It wasn't as though she _objected_ to breaking open a few more slave galleys if the opportunity arose. She'd never been chained in one herself, but it was the principle of thing. It had _always_ been the principle of the thing. The sea was freedom. It was why she'd run to it in the first place, all those years ago. It was why she'd fought for it a thousand times since. If a god of storms wanted her to pointedly demonstrate that a time or twenty more, well. She wouldn't be that bothered by it, honestly.

She looked around at her crew. Gauging expressions. Most were thoughtful, even if also harbouring some lingering alarm. A priest of fucking Iskuur would do that. A fullblown priest. None of them had ever encountered one of those before, not for _that_ god. But he seemed mellow enough, and a man with harbourmaster experience was absolutely of interest when it came to the reason they were actually _here_.

It wasn't like Thindisfal was going to magically produce anything better, after all, and right now she'd risk quite a lot just to be out of this fucking shithole.

"All right then," she said, looking around once more and catching everyone's eyes. "Guess we've heard what we need to hear. Any objections to a new purser?"

Maarle grimaced dubiously, eyeing Naheel with distinct unhappiness, but then she sighed heavily and nodded. "Fuck it," she said. "Let him on. It's only the god of storms. What's the worst that can happen?"

Wonderful, Gnel thought. She just had to hope Iskuur didn't take that as a dare. She looked at Drebson, hoping for something a little less challenging. Drebson was usually the best for that. The ship's carpenter tended to be economical with words at the absolute best of times. By which she meant, she'd heard him open his mouth a grand total of four times in the entirety of their time together. He didn't disappoint her now. He looked at her, looked at Naheel, nodded once and called it good.

She loved her crew. She really, really did.

That just left Fennec. She looked across the table at her first mate, one of her oldest friends, and found him eyeing the priest with a worrying expression. The type of expression he usually wore just before jumping onto a burning quarterdeck, a sort of resigned, queasy, devil-may-care sort of amusement. It was not a good expression. It had never been a good expression. But he opened his mouth before she could kick him under the table.

"Can I ask a question?" he asked brightly. "Just a quick one, before I answer. Just curiosity. Do you mind?"

Naheel raised an eyebrow. He didn't seem worried. He didn't seem worried by much of anything, really. "If you like," he answered easily, and Fennec grinned like he had a whole set of swordsmen in front of him. Gnel groaned, and hid her face in her palm.

"Excellent. I've been wondering since you walked in. What the fuck happened to your leg?"

There was silence for a couple of minutes after that. Gnel wasn't the only one staring at Fennec in blunt despair because of it, though she was the only one doing so from between her fingers. Even Drebson raised an eyebrow at him. Naheel ...

Naheel blinked once. Slowly. And smiled.

"Ah," he said. "A good question, I suppose. But I'm afraid the answer isn't that interesting. My shackle was on that leg. And the ship was sinking."

... Oh, Gnel thought. Well. That was a good thing to know about a man, she supposed. If you wanted a good idea how he might react in a crisis. How far his nerve might stretch. And ... why it mightn't be the best idea to corner him, maybe. 

Fennec blinked at him. _Very_ queasy now, but still grinning. Still casual and curious and devil-may-care. "Was that when he came to you?" he asked. "Your god. Was that when he decided you were the priest for him?"

Gnel blinked mildly. Oh. Yes. That ... that would make sense too.

Naheel smiled, inclining his head in acknowledgement. He rapped his knuckles gently against the wood of his leg. "Indeed," he said. "My life and my leg were his first gifts to me. He had to strip away a bit more of it. I'd made quite a mess. But there was a nice ship's figurehead nearby. Freshly sunk, with a leg all free for the taking. It looks well, I think. He chose nicely."

... Right. So Iskuur appreciated willful, damned defiance and a hellbound determination to be free, and tended to reward it with poetic remuneration. Again. Good to know.

Though again, for people like them, if they had to have _any_ god's attention ...

"Yeah," Fennec said, looking at Naheel first, and then at her, with a burning quarterdeck grin. "It looks well, all right. Looks just fine." He laughed faintly. "I think we're good, Gnel. I think our new purser will fit right in."

Last vote. Four in favour, none against. They'd brave all the madness of the chaos god of the sea, in return for a one-legged purser and a scrimshaw priest.

Gnel reached out, grabbed her tankard wordlessly. Only dregs, now, but drinking it wasn't the point. Her crew grabbed theirs up too, and Gnel nudged Naheel until he more cautiously lifted his as well. He looked bemusedly at her. Wary. Not quite hopeful. Gnel saluted him, and all her crew, and tossed back the last of her shark piss.

"Right," she rasped, around the tingling in her tusks. "Right. Welcome aboard, Naheel. We'll do our best not to let you get killed like our last purser got himself killed. Long live and good luck. You're going to need it."

And so would they, when it came to it. But Maarle had the right of it, Gnel figured. At the very base of it, Maarle had the right. It was only a god of storms, after all. 

Fuck it. What's the worst that could happen?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of figuring Iskuur for a broadly chaotic neutral sea-and-storm god. Well. Possibly on the border between Chaotic Neutral/Chaotic Good. He does strongly oppose slavery, tyranny, and the restriction of free will. He just _also_ opposes things like organised navies, and sea defenses, and the rule of law. And fishermen. He's not fond of nets or traps. I think fishermen actively pray to other sea gods for protection from him.
> 
> Also, on a completely different note, I want to apologise for not answering comments very well lately. Or at all lately. RL was a thing, and I kind of wasn't doing internet interaction for a while there. I'm not sure I'll be able to go back and answer a lot of them, but I figured I'd at least give a public apology for the failure -_-;


End file.
